Supermarket, seaside, friendly pub, nice neighbours.... one property that
ticks all the boxes

It’s not often that I come out top in a survey but a recent report on what makes the ideal home showed me that, on some subjects, I do tick all the boxes.

According to research by housebuilders Banner Homes, the perfect property is two miles from a supermarket, 10 miles from the coast and within walking distance of a pub where everyone knows your name. It must have good neighbours on both sides, be close to the countryside and a newsagent and have at least two TV sets. Tick, tick, tick... (though the sea is, in fact, just at the end of my road).

Admittedly, I’ve only been living in Walberswick in Suffolk for four weeks, but I couldn’t be happier with my new set-up.

For the past 20 years, I’ve lived on the banks of the River Thames, near Hampton Court. But as comedy writers, my husband and I can work anywhere, and with family and grandchildren in Suffolk and a longing to be beside the seaside, we started thinking about a move to the East Anglian coast.

One day, we drove into Walberswick. Flashy it is not. The beach huts are a universal, sombre black; no pastels and plastic lobsters here.

Low-key, laid back, slightly in the shadow of its grander, big sister Southwold – a ferry ride across the River Blyth – Walberswick has always attracted artists and writers, including Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Philip Wilson Steer.

We found ourselves a lovely 1910 Arts & Crafts house, which happens to tick yet more boxes in the survey – it has a garage, a couple of spare rooms and a nice lawn. It will shortly also acquire the remaining essentials for an “ideal home” – a comfortable sofa, an en suite bathroom and a fire (the logburning stove man came yesterday).

“Community spirit is something we still view as integral to being happy where we live,” says Banner Homes spokesman Piers Banfield.

Well, there’s buckets (and spades) of that in Walberswick.

When we arrived, neighbours came out to greet us, and smiles broadened as we explained that we plan to live here permanently (half of the properties are second homes, some owned by famous families including screenwriter Richard Curtis and his wife, Emma Freud, who are terribly supportive of the community).

There are two fantastic pubs within walking distance of our house. The nearest, The Anchor, is run by splendid Sophie, who quickly made sure that everybody knew our names. Far from being met by silence and swivelled heads when we walked in as “newcomers”, we were introduced all around, quizzed on our plans for the house and brought up to date on local events.

The saddest of these was that one of the legendary Walberswick characters, builder Wally Webb, who’d even done some work on our house, had died. Wally knew everyone in the village – and the inside of most of their houses. One villager has put up a number of blue plaques, inscribed: “Wally Webb, builder, worked here” and someone has renamed the sign at the entrance to the village “Wallyberswick”.

In the month since we arrived, we’ve been to a village lunch, a play reading and star gazing on the beach – and that is in midwinter, which locals claim is a quiet time here. I’ve been invited to join the early morning swimmers – yes, it’s the North Sea and, yes, it’s seven degrees – so I am throwing myself into village life.

When I attended my first parish council meeting, I learnt that a travelling post office visits twice a week and that there were “no reported crimes” in Walberswick in December, which gave me a great idea for a comedy... Oh, just a minute, I think Richard Curtis has beaten me to it with the Vicar of Dibley.

As the road ends in Walberswick, it really is a silent night here, and a very dark one. There are no street lights and a torch is an essential accessory. But I can see the stars and hear the sea, and even if I had never read that survey, I’d know that I’ve found my ideal home.